


play with fire

by transkylo (captainandor)



Series: for the dead travel fast [3]
Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Blood and Injury, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, it all comes with the territory folks!, you dont need to squint too hard to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainandor/pseuds/transkylo
Summary: The mattress below Johnathan is saturated with blood. Dracula casts a glance at it, reaching down to press at it gently with the tips of his fingers, which he inspects with disinterest.“What do you think happens to people who test my limits, Johnny? Hm? Where do they go?”
Relationships: Dracula/Jonathan Harker
Series: for the dead travel fast [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605586
Comments: 17
Kudos: 162





	play with fire

**Author's Note:**

> Dracula is _not_ nice

Johnathan wakes from a deep and dreamless sleep, alone in his bed. It’s not unusual to find himself so – the Count often disappears for hours at a time; rarely lingers for long after he’s finished with Johnathan. 

It isn’t quite dusk yet, and Johnathan turns on his pillow, watches from the tiny window as the sun glimmers in the distance, slowly beginning its descent behind the distant mountains. Faintly, he wonders what would happen, if he were to step into the light. The Count had screamed in pain and fallen to the ground when the mere reflection of the sun had touched his skin; this agony obvious in comparison to the entry of two bullets to his chest, which had barely produced a reaction. Would it kill them both to stand directly in the sun’s path? There is so much that he is yet to learn. 

He rolls onto his back, glancing down at his bare chest. The wound has almost fully closed itself, the skin raised and slightly red. Johnathan wonders what Dracula did with the bullet he removed, and subsequently what happened to the gun itself, carelessly discarded in the dining room. And what now? He’s openly defied the Count; made a clear attempt to kill him. Surely Johnathan will not be easily forgiven for this transgression. The thought eats at him, making him feel restless, and he cannot fall back asleep. 

The sky grows darker, and Johnathan decides that it must be time to get up. He does so slowly. The bullet wound may have begun to heal, but his aching muscles are slower to obey. He glances, with a sigh, at the garments discarded on the floor. The Count’s own are not among them. 

Instead of stooping to collect yesterday’s clothes, Johnathan goes to his wardrobe to select something clean. He’s looking for a waistcoat to pull on over his shirt when something gives him pause. His suitcase is in a slightly different position, the sheets atop it in disarray. He knows it wasn’t left that way by him – and he purses his lips. It’s hardly a surprise that the Count would go through his things after what happened the night before, but it doesn’t stop the spark of irritation that the invasion of his privacy strikes. 

A cursory glance inside confirms that nothing is missing, although Johnathan lingers when he sees the photograph he knows is of Mina, folded shut. He doesn’t want to look at it. Doesn’t want to see Mina’s smiling face, feel her quiet disappointment, even as she remains oceans away from him. 

“Lost something?” a voice says from behind him. Johnathan closes his eyes and presses the suitcase shut. 

He turns. 

Dracula is standing at the door, a hand leaning nonchalantly against the wooden frame.

“No.” he replies, then adds, “You went through my things.”

Dracula’s eyebrow raises. “You went through mine.” He counters, pushing himself away from the door and takes a few steps further into the bedroom. His presence feels heavy in the enclosed space, “Besides, what’s yours is mine. Wedded couples should have no secrets from one another, is that not true?”

Johnathan bristles. “We are not,” he says, “A wedded couple.”

This causes Dracula to pout, his brow creasing with the sudden change in expression. “No?”

“ _No_.”

Dracula steps into Johnathan’s personal space. “And what of us taking the sacrament together? Our consummation?” 

Johnathan resolutely does not think about the ‘consummation’ to which Dracula refers, because it will make him think about last night, and he will be distracted by the top button on Dracula’s shirt, undone and lying open to expose a sliver of collarbone. He swallows. 

“We did not,” he says, “Take the sacrament together. You make a mockery of religion by saying so.”

Dracula rolls his eyes. “Johnny, darling. Don’t pretend to care about that now. You renounced your faith when you died.” He pauses, “And anyway. It may not have been the blood of Christ that we consumed but I suppose it was…close enough.” A playful smile dances across his lips, and he does nothing to try and hide it. 

“What?” Much as he doesn’t want to play into Dracula’s games – he can’t help but ask.

Amused by himself, Dracula smiles. “A nun.” He explains, “Delightful little thing. Very pious. Not that it made any difference, in the end.” 

Johnathan remembers the cloying sweetness of her blood on his tongue, the vague, human memories he had not the presence of mind to pay any attention to at the time – he had been so hungry. It makes his mouth water, and he’s angry at himself for the way he reacts. 

“You’re a beast.” He grits the words out through clenched teeth. 

“Oh, darling.” Dracula murmurs. “You have _no_ idea.” He leans in, dipping his head to catch Johnathan’s lips with his own. It elicits a low groan in Johnathan’s throat as he presses closer in spite of himself and kisses back, allows Dracula to nip at him with his teeth. 

The Count gently steers them back towards the bed, letting Johnathan fall lightly onto the mattress when the back of his knees hit the edge of it. He looks upwards, meeting Dracula’s eye, and wets his lips. 

“Besides,” Dracula continues, reaching up to undo the rest of the buttons on his shirt, revealing inch by inch of lightly muscled chest, scattered with dark hair. “You rather like me that way, do you not?”

Johnathan answers him by twisting himself around on the mattress, bracing himself on his hands and knees. He casts a glance back over his shoulder, hoping the angle will hide the flush that he can feel rising to his cheeks. It’s half anger, half arousal. Dracula is right, and he hates it. 

A strong hand comes to rest on his hip, strokes firmly over one buttock as the other slips around the front, unbuttoning Johnathan’s trousers in one simple move. Sometimes Johnathan wonders why he bothers dressing himself at all, when Dracula is just going to peel the layers all off again shortly afterwards. 

“You’re so good for me, Johnny, when you want to be.” He purrs, leaning in to drape himself across Johnathan’s back, trails a line of kisses along the side of his neck. Want creeps down Johnathan’s spine, settling low in his stomach. He rocks his hips back, delighting in the low noise it punches from Dracula’s lips. “Aren’t you, darling?” 

He pushes his hand into Johnathan’s underwear, fingers curling around him. Johnathan’s arousal is growing rapidly, and Dracula squeezes him hard in his fist. 

“Answer me.” He says, when all Johnathan can do is squirm, giddy with the intensity of his own desire as he feels Dracula’s own arousal pressing insistently against his backside. 

“Nn.” He gasps. He wants – so desperately – to say no. He might have, once, when he was still Johnathan Harker, the English lawyer; diplomatic and level headed and _human_. The word won’t even leave his lips, now. Perhaps Dracula has made a monster out of him, too.

“Oh,” Dracula murmurs, pressing a kiss against the nape of Johnathan’s neck. He can hear, as well as feel the smile in Dracula’s voice as he speaks, lips brushing against his skin, “I think we’ll try that again, shall we?” his grip loosens, enough that Johnathan can roll his hips into the touch. 

With his free hand, Dracula pulls at Johnathan’s trousers and underwear, sliding them easily down his thighs and leaving them bunched, inelegantly, around his knees. He can’t find it in himself to care, not when Dracula pushes the hem of his shirt up to expose his backside, trails a finger down to tease at the spot where he’s still loose from the night before. Johnathan whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“So.” He continues, voice frustratingly steady. “What’s it to be?”

He angles his hips, pushing against the Count’s finger, hissing through the burning stretch as his body accommodates the sudden intrusion. He lets his head hang forwards, between his shoulders. “Yes.” He says, quietly. 

“Speak up, darling, I can hardly hear you,” 

“Yes!” he hisses, “I’ll be. I’ll be good, just please, please – ”

Dracula curls his finger experimentally, slides another one in to join it, teasing him gently. Johnathan trembles, risking a glance back over his shoulder to be met with a look of pure arousal. His eyes are the deepest black, lips parted. There’s a moment of heavy silence. To Johnathan, it feels like an age. But then Dracula is withdrawing his fingers, leaving behind a feeling of sudden emptiness. He barely even registers the rustle of fabric as Dracula unbuttons his own trousers before his head is being forced forwards, cheek pressed firmly against the bedsheets as Dracula pushes into him with his cock. 

Johnathan lets out a strangled whine, curling his fingers into the sheets beneath him. Dracula’s own hand fists in his hair as he sets an unrelenting pace. All Johnathan can do is moan, held firmly in place by Dracula’s strength as he takes his own pleasure. 

Suddenly, Dracula’s hand slides to curl around Johnathan’s throat, using it as leverage to pull him sharply up onto his knees, his weight balanced now against Dracula’s chest as he lets his head fall against the shoulder behind him. 

“Good boy.” Dracula says, against the side of his neck. 

Johnathan can’t hold back the noise that he makes at the praise, part of him basking in its warmth, though he has a distinct feeling that Dracula is mocking him, even in this. He can’t find it in himself to care – not now, when his pleasure is growing by the second, every twist of Dracula’s wrist on his cock and push of his hips pushing him closer and closer to the edge. 

He comes with a hoarse cry, his body falling forwards, only to be caught again by a strong arm curled around him. Dracula ruts into him several more times before he reaches his own climax, spilling inside Johnathan only moments later. 

It’s quiet, for a moment. Dracula caresses him, his touch featherlight, skating up Johnathan’s torso, pressing a few soft kisses to the curve of Johnathan’s shoulder. It’s uncharacteristically tender. 

It’s not to last. Dracula’s hand reaches its mark and his thumb nail presses in, catches Johnathan’s jugular, slicing open the skin in one clean swipe. 

The blood has started pouring out before Johnathan even realises what’s happened. He tries to scream, but it comes out gurgled. His hands fly to his throat, scrabbling to do something, anything he can – to stop the flow of blood. Dracula pulls out of him none too gently, grabbing Johnathan by the shoulder and spinning him around to give him a firm shove onto the mattress. 

He sighs, looking down his nose at him as he carefully wipes himself with a clean edge of bedsheet, and readjusts his trousers. 

Johnathan is still bleeding, fumbling for something he can press against the open wound and stem the bloodflow. He’s beginning to feel lightheaded.

“Stop that.” Dracula swats at his hands, annoyed. “Honestly, darling. You’re not going to bleed to death.” 

All Johnathan can do is stare up at him uselessly. He tries to speak again, but blood bubbles up from behind his lips. 

Dracula settles down on his lap, straddling him comfortably as he tugs them hem of Johnathan’s shirt back down to give him a false sense of modesty. Not that it matters – he’s already seen all of Johnathan; knows him fully. There’s nothing left of him that Dracula hasn’t already touched in some way, changed irrevocably. 

“Now I need you to listen to me.” He says, “And do stop looking so forlorn, the bleeding will stop in a moment. You didn’t think I’d let you away with your little game last night, did you? You need to be punished for that. And you will be.”

The mattress below Johnathan is saturated with blood. Dracula casts a glance at it, reaching down to press at it gently with the tips of his fingers, which he inspects with disinterest. 

“What do you think happens to people who test my limits, Johnny? Hm? Where do they go?” 

Johnathan’s chest squeezes in immediate panic, mind going directly to the attics, and the boxes kept there – the discarded brides locked within. He shakes his head frantically, tries, in earnest, to say _no_ , but all that escapes his lips is a desperate, strangled noise. 

“N-nn.” He tries. He won’t let himself be put there. No, no no no – 

“Shh, shh.” Dracula tells him with a smile, touching a bloodied finger to Johnathan’s lips. He leans down to replace his finger with a small, chaste kiss to Johnathan’s mouth, tongue flicking out to lick away the smear of blood left there. 

“Don’t worry. It’s not permanent. Just until you’ve learned your lesson, hm?”

Johnathan should know better than to trust him.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at @aptanstjarna if you fancy chatting about this ridiculous pairing, or alternatively if you're just interested in following me for historical content and general gay stuff.


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